


Hand of Slate

by TheVineSpeaketh



Series: Ain't No Rest for the Short-Change Hero [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Borderlands, Enjolras Was A Charming Young Man Who Was Capable Of Being Terrible, F/M, Grantaire & Éponine Thénardier Friendship, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, M/M, Siren!Eponine, Sniper!Grantaire, Vault Hunter!Grantaire, grantaire is a bamf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVineSpeaketh/pseuds/TheVineSpeaketh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sir?” a voice came crackling through the radio at Enjolras’s hip, and he scowled, pulling up the radio and pressing down the transmission.</p><p>“Now is not a good time,” he hissed, his voice low. “I specifically told you not to disturb me unless it was something of the utmost importance. I’m the middle of the meeting.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important, sir,” the voice replied, though he seemed thoroughly cowed. “Someone just broke through the gate, sir."</p><p>"What."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand of Slate

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stop combining Les Mis with stuff.
> 
> Seriously. Expect to see Les Mis with the following:
> 
> Pirates!AU  
> Halo!AU (Reach)  
> Borderlands!AU (2)
> 
> And not to mention that ongoing lovey-dovey thing I've got going (which I am actually still working on, so stay tuned!)
> 
> Augh.

Saying that hell had broken loose as soon as the radio came in saying someone opened the damn gate to Sanctuary— _someone opened the goddamn gate to Sanctuary_ —was a major understatement.

Les Amis de l'ABC, the organization that had overseen the construction of Sanctuary, the organization that had managed to get the shields up and powered against the threat of Hyperion (which rained down upon them more often than not nowadays), the organization that managed to get hundreds of people to safety, the organization that had kept bandits far, far away from the citizens deep inside, the organization that attempted to keep small businesses thriving against Hyperion’s overzealous gun sales, was having one of its weekly meetings.

Within the meeting were people of serious importance within the city. For example, there was the best gun-dealer in the city, Courfeyrac, who often sold guns to people he called “losers who don’t know quality” for prices that were far above the norm. While his business practices were dubious at best (he wasn’t the only one who had that particular problem, to be honest), his importance to the city was incalculable. As the sole trader of guns in Sanctuary, he often was the only one able to arm new guards or concerned citizens, and he rarely (if ever) sold a Hyperion gun.

In addition to that, he also gave jobs to two other people who had grown to be very important to the city. Bahorel was a resident marksman, and as such, was deemed the most suitable to test Courfeyrac’s guns. He never disappointed, constantly hitting his mark, and the only times he didn’t were when the sight of the gun was off, or the barrel was crooked. Courfeyrac was overjoyed when he found him lounging around town, just waiting until he could find another place to drift off to, and in the way that only he seemed able to do, he convinced Bahorel to stay as his assistant.

While Courfeyrac was not disappointed in his gamble to take on a paid employee, he knew that only testing his gun with an expert’s hand would make it harder to sell to the common man (Combeferre, their resident economics expert, had tried to tell him that this was not really a logical conclusion to come to, but in true Courfeyrac style, he ignored him). So he also hired Bossuet Lesgle, the one guard of Sanctuary who easily had the worst luck in the history of history, to test his guns. When Bossuet held a gun, something bad was bound to happen (either to him or the weapon, some days it was hard to tell which it was going to be). When the inevitable did occur, Courfeyrac was able to reinforce the gun to resist such a shortcoming again. His products, despite everyone’s dubious concerns, had actually grown in quality.

Bahorel and Bossuet were at the meeting as well, seeing they were important to Courfeyrac (and, by extension, Sanctuary), though they usually strayed away from their boss. Bossuet usually went to sit next to Musichetta and Dr. Joly. Musichetta was a fellow Guard of Sanctuary, and though she wasn’t a crack-shot like Bahorel, she was not as unlucky as Bossuet. She could easily hold her own in a fight without panicking or losing sight of the goal, and was proficient with an assault-rifle. She was often seen taking lessons from Bahorel on how to shoot, usually in return for something, though what that was, exactly, was subject to much speculation, because nobody knew for sure except the two parties involved, and they weren’t saying anything on the subject.

Dr. Joly was the only medical doctor in Sanctuary (and possibly on Pandora), and he was a nervous wreck because of it. Constantly dealing with broken and shattered limbs, missing organs, and gunshot wounds left Dr. Joly with a mind constantly on overdrive. He had assured many people that he was fine, and outside of the operating room, he functioned quite normally. However, when performing surgery or giving first aid, he often became manic, sometimes blathering and laughing for no reason. In a strange twist of fate, his manic state actually helped him perform medicine in a superior way at an even faster rate than normal (Combeferre tested it several times for posterity), so everyone left it where it was.

Bahorel went to sit next to Feuilly, the resident mechanic of Sanctuary who manned the Catch-A-Ride stations and supplied them with Runners. Feuilly hardly spoke outside of the meetings, instead deciding to keep to himself, so Bahorel often did most of the talking for him when it came to the Catch-A-Ride stations, his voice making up most of the recordings the stations spouted as passers-by to gain their attention.

The other recordings were done by Jehan Prouvaire, who simply liked shouting nonsensical things about the runners and was more than willing to volunteer his time for it. Jehan had a special place in Sanctuary as the dealer of upgrades for various things, like armor and storage. The only difference between him and other merchants of Sanctuary is that he only accepted payment in the form of glowing purple gems known as Eridium, which sprouted all around Pandora shortly after the first Vault was opened.

It was actually rumored that the resistance leader himself, Enjolras, the ex-Lance soldier who had long left his past of fighting for a major corporation to instead exact vigilante justice on any overruling companies like that, had been one of the four Vault Hunters who had opened the Vault in the first place. He didn’t talk much about his past, though since the rumors all seemed to hold the same story, everyone just assumed they were correct.

Marius Pontmercy, the local scribe, didn’t know precisely what the story was, though he knew a lot more than anybody else in Sanctuary. He had records of almost every major event on Pandora, and was in charge of keeping track of any information that crossed his path, which was often a lot. As such, he was always flustered and covered in ink and paper, raving about something seemingly unimportant as he sat at his desk. His good friend Cosette usually sat in at meetings and translated him when he was raving, as she was apparently very good at that. Marius was obviously smitten with her, often casting her hopeful smiles and loving glances when she wasn’t looking. If only he had the gall to look at her more often, because if he did, he’d see she was doing the same back at him.

This week’s meeting was permeated with Marius’s particular brand of ranting, though the difference between past weeks and this week was that Cosette actually couldn’t understand what Marius was saying. He was saying something about “fire” and “rifles” and Enjolras had interpreted it as an oncoming attack on Sanctuary until Marius had stood up and shouted “No!”, his eyes wide with fear, and clearly that wasn’t it. He’d then begun shuffling through the papers all in front of him, clearly looking for something in particular, and all eyes had turned to Cosette. Cosette had simply shrugged, looking lost and slightly frightened.

“Could it perhaps be a good sign for my business?” Courfeyrac asked, rubbing his hands together, his eyes nearly twinkling with the prospect of selling more rifles. “Perhaps Bahorel’s testing of my wares has finally paid off?”

“I doubt it has to do with economics,” Combeferre said, looking at Courfeyrac with a long-suffering look. “Marius seems almost beside himself today.”

“I just want to know if we should be concerned,” Musichetta said, fingering the pistol in her holster defensively, and Enjolras shot her an appreciative look. “Marius isn’t usually like this, and what little we can gauge from this seems disastrous.”

“He seems to be referring to a singular instance, and not to individual firearms, from what the reports he keeps shuffling seem to say,” Cosette said, looking through the papers before her brows furrowed and she pulled up one paper that had been buried, tapping Marius’s shoulder and showing it to him.

“There it is!” he cried, grabbing it from Cosette and giving her a blinding smile before turning to the rest of them and holding it in front of him. “I’ve heard several sources all saying the same thing, different people at different places saying the same thing—people are passing through towns, only a group of two, and they’re—”

“ _Sir?_ ” a voice came crackling through the radio at Enjolras’s hip, and he scowled, pulling up the radio and pressing down the transmission.

“Now is **not** a good time,” he hissed, his voice low. “I specifically told you not to disturb me unless it was something of the utmost importance. I’m the middle of the meeting.”

“ _Wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important, sir,_ ” the voice replied, though he seemed thoroughly cowed. “ _Someone just broke through the gate, sir. They activated it from the other side and now they’re just strolling into town. They don’t have guns, but they’ve—_ ”

“ **What,** ” Enjolras seethed, looking at the radio as if he could make it spontaneously combust just through his glare alone, just as Marius yelled, “They’ve got an Alpha Skag!”

“ _Y-Yes_ ,” the voice replied, wavering a little in its confidence, though whether that was because of the strangers or because of Enjolras, nobody was sure. “ _It’s two people, a woman and man, and the woman’s riding the Skag. She keeps screaming… Here, listen for yourself._ ”

There was a brief crackling sound, and then a different voice carried through the radio. “ _We come in peace, bitches!_ ”

Another voice, this one significantly calmer and lower, followed shortly after. “ _Ep, cool it. You’re freaking them out._ ”

“ _I like it when they look at me like that. Gives me a feeling of power._ ”

“ _Take pity on them. They’ve probably never seen a tamed Alpha before._ ”

“ _What have they got against Gavroche? He’s a sweetie, he wouldn’t harm anybody._ ”

“ _Ep, there’s still blood on his jowls. That’s more than enough to freak out the average citizen. What did you feed him last night, anyway?_ ”

“ _Well, there was a camp of bandits near our camp, and they started nosing around, so I just—_ ”

“ _For goodness’ sake, I leave you in charge of him for one day and you have him eating **bandits**? What if he ate a buzzsaw by accident?_ ”

“Do you think they’re dangerous?” Bossuet asked, his voice louder than the continued bickering that carried through the radio.

“She’s riding a skag,” Musichetta said, clearly deep in thought.

Courfeyrac, meanwhile, grinned. “I like them,” he said, looking around at everyone else and nodding decisively.

Combeferre fixed him with another look. “They got through our shields without any qualms.”

“I still like them,” Courfeyrac replied.

“All the records I have on hand say they aren’t dangerous,” Marius replied, flipping through a few more papers. “In fact, they’ve been picking up bounties and turning them in. None of them were from bandits, it looks like. Hyperion records say that the only bounty board that they could have possibly used as of yet is ours, but they’ve still been taking bounties. Apparently they were the ones who helped return Valjean to us.”

“Javert is a cruel man,” Cosette mumbled, clearly still peeved that her father had been banished to an icy glacier for half a year.

“Javert is more than cruel,” Enjolras replied, setting the radio on the table and flicking his butterfly knife absently, as he was wont to do. It wasn’t a display of power, not to him; everyone knew it was simply him keeping his hands busy so his mind could wander elsewhere. “But these people don’t seem to be.” He sighed, shutting his eyes a moment, his hands stilling, before he opened his eyes again and snapped the knife shut. “It seems we only have one option.”

“And what option is that?” Combeferre asked, but judging by his expression, he already knew the answer.

“Say hello.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://exacteyewriting.tumblr.com)


End file.
